You see, after a while, I started going through the corpses—to recapture that feeling, I think. You have to understand, I was on the brink of suicide. I had to do something to try and save myself, after the ruin that Jessie left me as.
No-one ever caught me red-handed, so to speak, but I think after a while they all kind of knew.
The months that followed were full of wild and grossly overblown stories about me and what I did and what I got up to in the morgue all alone at night—some of them so sordid and so graphic that I wondered at the mind that had thought them up, because I was an angel by comparison. It takes real sickness to apply such bloody imagination to something that, quite frankly, is bad enough as it is.
Yes, bad enough—I felt bad about the ones after Jessie, you see. My conscience tore at me, especially when it came to the Croft's daughter. That felt wrong. I'll never forget the tearing sound I heard as I pushed inside her cold, greying tissue—a virgin, a virgin after all, and who would have thought, with she so blonde and full of herself and always so popular and pretty?
They didn't have to fire me or anything. I left by myself, a few months later.
Since then I've been travelling around, looking for a girl like Jessie, so that I can find her and watch her and help her to the other side where she will be most beautiful. You see, it felt wrong with all the other girls because not all girls are meant for it; beauty in death. Only the special ones—and I know them, when I see them. I can spot them a mile away.
* * * *
* * * *
So you see, Angela, that's where you come in. You've been very nice and patient with me, listening to my story. And I've got better since back then in Crawford Towne, don't you think? I hardly stutter at all these days, and I owe it all to women like you. You have given me confidence, over time, even if your motivations for giving it are always entirely selfish. Because what's a man like me to a girl like you? One thing only: an ego boost. Just like with Jessie.
Was it the same for you, Angela, when you met me at the homeless shelter? Did you also feel so hopelessly sorry for me, helping me choose my third-or-fourth-hand clothes? No, I don't think you felt sorry for me, I think you felt better for you—thinking to yourself what a lovely, kind young girl you are, to help a down-and-out like me. It's alright, you don't have to lie to me. In fact I can help you; I can help you liberate yourself with the truth. My Uncle Stuart taught me a lot about the true nature of women; I guess you could say I know even more about it than you.
No, don't struggle—the shed is just through there, like I said it would be, in a clearing in the woods. It's taken me months to build it, to make it perfect for you. I've made it nice and secure, and there aren't half so many holes in the walls as my Uncle Stuart's had.
Don't worry, it won't be the same for you—you don't look anything like Jessie, for a start. Your hair is too dark for one thing, and your legs and arms are thicker, heavier; you don't have nearly the same grace that she did. No offence. That's why I'm taking you to the shed—because I wouldn't, normally, I'm not a monster. I know my Uncle Stuart had no problems with it, but I always feel a little sick when I bolt that door on a woman's screams. No, I'm not doing it to be cruel—I just want you to lose a little weight first, and nothing can fix that better than a few days in there. Just ask my mother. My Uncle left her there for weeks, and even though it killed her he still says it did her a world of good. The way I know women now, I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.
So you see, it won't be anything like the way it was with Jessie, not this time, not with you. I chose you only because you and Jessie have the same skin, the exact same, translucent glow—a lovely, smouldering effect in your colouring, like the texture of cream. And I haven't seen it in years—not in years, not since Jessie. It will be so beautiful when it's cold and tinged with blue—oh Angela, you will be so beautiful....
Oh Angela, please don't shout—no-one can hear you out here. Besides, it could be your one act of true selflessness, real kindness towards a man.
* * * *
Karen Runge lives in Johannesburg, but still considers herself a small-town Midlands gal. She has been telling stories since she could draw wobbly crayon pictures, and won't tell you her day job because it is completely irrelevant to her main passions: gargling poetry and locking herself out of her house. She has lived in France, Gabon and England, and would like to move to China someday.
* * * *
This is Karen's second story for Something Wicked. Her first, The Lighthouse, was published in Issue 3.
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
SAID THE SPIDER by Michael Taljaard
illustrated by Hendrik Gericke
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
Something spiny moved across her neck. Sleep shattered. She blinked back images like tears, spiral shapes and amorphous forms of hallucination. Her emerald irises pulsed and constricted to take in the stark surroundings. Her forehead creased with dazed confusion. She was not quite sure why she was awake.
I am nothing but vibration, a note resonating matter. I am not real. This is not real.
The Something scuttled down her arm and danced in her palm like the static of pins and needles. She stared vacantly at the twitching speck. With sudden shock, realization struck. She shook her hand violently. A small jumping spider hit the hard tiled floor. It lay stunned, shook off the impact, then fled to the dark crevice beneath the bed. Nice going, Miss Muffet! She scorned herself, repenting her overreaction; the spider was the first living thing she'd seen since she'd been here. Her skin crawled with residual adrenaline. The spider was a resonation of matter, like her. Their frequencies were intertwined. Every life is a note, every note a part of a greater harmonic symphony. Ben had told her that. She would protect the spider. She would allow it to resonate; they would only want to kill it.
With practiced deliberation, she removed herself from the thin bed-sheets and lowered her feet to the sterile floor. The room was small, windowless, one entire wall mirror. Opposite was her bed. At its foot was a small metal chest where her clothes were kept and cleaned. A grey door led on to a cramped cubicle bathroom, sink/shower/toilet. These were her quarters, featureless, impersonal. Overhead fluorescent lights buzzed incessantly, even when she slept.
She made her bed with obsessive precision, laid her clothes on the crisp sheets and removed her white silk nightie. She stood before her bed, unashamed of her nakedness, defiant of her observers. Behind the one-way mirror a team of scientist studied her with narrowed eyes.
Her name was Eve Shelley. Her rights waived, her dignity forfeited; she was a specimen.
She wondered what time it was and then wondered why it mattered. It was impossible to tell. Down here there was nothing but the God of synthetic lighting, forever providing for His Eve ... and the spider.
"Doctor Shelly? I trust you slept well.” The voice resounded in the small bedroom, Godly in volume, meek in timbre. It was The God of Fluorescence Himself.
"Very well, thank you Doctor Zeigler.” She said this to her own reflection. There was no other face to which she could direct her speech.
"Your slumber seemed disturbed.” He said. Eve said nothing.
"What is your physical condition this morning?” His voice echoed from speakers in the ceiling.
"Excellent.” She replied clearly.
Eve stood, feet firmly planted. In the mirror taut muscle rippled beneath her skin like the strings of a violin, tuned to perfection. Her hands rested at her sides, her firm breasts bared. Her hair ruffled around her head like the feathers of a blackbird. Eve faced her nudity unabashed.
"So I see.” There was a moment silence in which Eve could feel their eyes violating every visible crevice of her naked body. She let them. Her stare never faltered.
"Doctor Shelley, is there anything you need to bring to my attention?"
"No.” Her eyes flickered as she thought of the spider. Had they noticed? Sur
ely they knew. A pause: intense.
"Very well. Prepare for cardio tests, we will expect you in the lab in twenty minutes. Zeigler out."
Eve nodded, stretched the violin-string muscles in her arms and legs and donned the black jump suit laid out on her bed. At a panel on the wall she typed a twelve-digit code. A previously concealed door whispered open and she walked out into a long irradiated passage. At a food dispenser mounted in an alcove like an ATM, she collected her breakfast rations. She wolfed three muesli bars and chugged a plastic cup of coffee, maintaining her brisk pace past labelled glass doors: MRI, X-RAY, ELECTRO-ENCEPHALOGRAPH. She stopped at one marked CARDIOGRAPHY AND BLOOD.
* * * *
She was running. Tubes ran from her nostrils and mouth. Wires like wild masses of leeches attached to her arms, face and neck, their needle heads embedded deep beneath her perspiring skin. Her eyes stung, her muscles ached. And still she ran.
Before these fluorescent lights and sterile-walls, buried deep in the fabric of her memory was a past, a life, a faded silent movie on rotten film reel. Images from this film-noir streamed constantly, randomly.
There is a woman, a softer, fuller, more feminine version of the woman she saw in the mirror. She sits at a desk in a study looking out over St. Maritz Hospital Park. She is a psychologist, a good one. On the antique oak bookcase, amongst others, are three books on abnormal behaviour. Her name is proudly emblazoned on their covers. She is successful and attractive. She is everything she has ever wanted to be. She looks up. There is a man standing in the doorway. He is younger than her, twenty-six. She motions for him to come in and sit on the couch. He does. He is calm and confident, eerily so. Eve cannot hear the conversation, but she knows how it goes.
"You must be Mr. Benjamin Daniels.” The psychologist-lady says silently. He smiles. She is immediately and obviously taken with his good looks and exuberant charm. Her hands are unconsciously ruffling her papers. She becomes suddenly aware of this and stills her hands.
"Your file says you suffer from schizophrenic delusions and hallucinations,” she mouths.
"I don't suffer from delusions or hallucinations,” he says. “I relish them."
His eyes are dark, seductive. They flicker with madness.
A half-hour into the consultation she is spread open on her desk. He is on top of her thrusting violently. Her well-manicured psychologist's nails dig deep into his back as orgasm paralyzes the muscles in her legs and shakes her body. When the hour is over he leaves. She feels as though she is waking from a dream or hypnotic trance. Her pulse beats wildly; she cannot believe what has just happened. She does not feel dirty or whorish, exactly. Decadent, out of character, amazingly alive. She straightens the papers on her desk, fixes her clothes and calls in the next patient.
* * * *
* * * *
The treadmill gradually slowed to a stop. She stood breathing heavily for a moment, then wiped the sweat from her eyes and proceeded to remove the tubes and wires.
"Good, Doctor Shelley,” came the voice of Doctor Zeigler. “We will be requiring a blood and urine sample. You will find the syringes and specimen cups in Draw C. Once drawn, please deposit the samples in the drop safe so that testing can commence."
She collected the syringes from a grey cabinet and drew the blood unflinchingly. She was a carrier, deadly to all with whom she came in contact, but here, in the land of white, she would save insurmountable numbers of lives.
She watched the blood fill the transparent cylinder and the image of a blood-splattered toilet bowl flickered on her film-reel.
* * * *
After a day (day?) of intensive testing Eve showered. The tepid water drew red rivulets from needle holes in her skin. She stood totally depleted, watching the swirling vortex of her own toxic fluids. She began to cry. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Washed down the drain. Here behind the blessed privacy of a nylon curtain she gave in. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she held her face in her hands.
Another image on rotten film: a spider, the small jumping kind. It looks at her with eight black-pearl eyes.
Suddenly she stopped crying. Wiped her face. And felt strong.
As she lay on her back in bed, she watched the spider on her ceiling looking down at her, her mind mercifully blank She was not surprised when it spoke. Not out loud, exactly, a low resonation.
It offered her words of reassurance, it told her everything would be okay. It told her to just relax, let go, feel yourself drifting ... She fell asleep without realizing. With curious amusement, the spider noted the secret smile that touched Eve's lips.
* * * *
"Every life is a note, every note a part of a greater harmonic symphony. You've seen what I can do, Eve, these powers I have. It's possible because I know that I am nothing but vibration, a note resonating matter. I am not real. This is not real."
"What is real then?"
"Our harmony."
"What does that mean?"
"Do you know why you love me?"
"Because I have a subconscious need to feel superior to men and satisfy this by demonstrating my psychological superiority in toxic relationships with crazies?"
"No because we resonate in harmony. Our frequencies correlate and that is the most powerful force you can imagine."
"It's an interesting theory."
"You still think I'm crazy."
"No, Ben. I believe you."
* * * *
"Ben?” Eve whispered and opened her eyes to see the spider once again perched on her hand. “Hey, little feller", she whispered. “Seems we've got you a name. It suits you.” She moved her hand close to the wall and set him down on firmer ground. “I wonder,” she said softly, “where did you come from?” The spider blinked at her questioningly. She surmised he had escaped from a parallel laboratory and crawled through the filters in the cooling system.
"You know, the plague won't last forever and with the money from the research I'll buy a farmhouse in the country. I'll take you with me. You can have the barn to yourself and I'll keep you well fed on the fattest flies you can imagine."
The spider looked back at her knowingly, teetering on his eight agile legs. “Don't be such a pessimist. We'll get out of here.” She said. Although the pouches beneath her eyes had darkened and grown heavy, her eyes blazed with hope from their sallow sockets.
"Good morning, Dr. Shelly,” came the ubiquitous voice of Zeigler.
The spider scurried down the side of her bed with sudden alarm. “Peculiar creature,” she mumbled with a hint of affection.
"Good morning. Doctor Zeigler."
There was silence and then a muffled, raspy cough.
"Zeigler?” From the overhead speakers came a meaty wrenching sound, amplified to nightmarish volume by the confined space of her room. “Doctor Zeigler? Are you alright?” More squelchy wet meat sounds.
"Dr. Zeigler?"
Then came the more human sound of coughing, belching and vomiting. She imagined Dr. Zeigler sitting slumped and bloodied over the microphone spewing up his liquefied innards. She screamed. “Doctor Zeigler!"
Eve hurled herself at the one-way glass. She hammered the glass with tightly clenched fists. It did nothing but momentarily warp her reflection. She was still dressed in her white night-slip. She noticed suddenly how much weight she'd lost in the past few days, her nipples poked through the thin material, emphasizing the diminishing of her breasts. “Please!” she cried. “Someone help! If anyone is out there, please, give me a signal.” She cupped her hands against the glass to see if she could make out anything behind it, but only her own frightened green eyes stared back.
* * * *
She fumbles with the keys to her front door. Her hands are icy numb appendages. Inside Ben will be lighting a fire. She looks forward to a steaming cup of coffee and fiery mid-morning sex in the heated lounge. A crash and tinkle of broken glass shatter her reverie. Then a terrifying cry like a dying animal.
"Ben!” she cries, bashing the door futilely with a glove
d hand. “Shit!” She exclaims. She rips off the glove with her teeth and fumbles with the key for another excruciating moment. The key slides home and the bolt springs back. She flings the door open, throws her handbag down and runs into the lounge. It is a slaughter-site. Red drips from the coffee table. Her white couches are blotchy. The thick pile rug is matted with blood. “Jesus Christ! Ben, what the fuck's going on?” A thump from upstairs. “Ben!” She calls, reaching fever pitch. Bloody footprints stagger across the lounge. She follows them upstairs. Scattered across the landing are shards of a glass vase. The shards glisten brilliantly crimson where Ben has shredded his feet.
The footprints run into the bedroom. The phone is off the hook and dangling in a pool of gunk. From the bathroom comes the sound of heavy breathing and gurgling coughs.
"Oh my god, Ben!” She cries helplessly in the doorway. Ben looks up at her, ashamed, his eyes swim with mucous, grey and bloody, his face and hands are splattered with viscous, diseased fluid. Thick rivulets drip from each nostril. He is bent over the toilet like a drunk. The white porcelain is now a sickening red-black. “Eve,” He manages to wheeze. He looks at her with a pained, humiliated expression. This man who stood six-foot two, dark and confident, reduced to this, a crawling, undignified invalid. Her heart shatters.
She screams, rushes to his side and skids on the slimy linoleum floor. “Ben, what happened here? Why?” Her hands flutter around him like confused pigeons, not sure where to settle.
"Sick,” he grunts and coughs up more black blood.
"Please, baby, it's okay, I'll phone the ambulance. It'll be okay."
He grabs her wrist feebly. “No,” he manages. “Too late. I'm sorry, Eve.” His eyes roll back showing jaundiced yellow. His head drops forward, hits the toilet seat and slides across the smeary surface. His limp body collapses alongside the toilet. She wrenches out an agonized cry and flops back against the wall, weeping hysterically into her bloody hands.
Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine #5 Page 5